When I walk into a boardroom, I see human beings with various competencies coming together to make beneficial decisions. When I raise my hand at a meeting to contribute my opinion, I speak with the confidence that I have a right to freely express myself. When I dream, I just dream. When I actualise my dreams, I experience the energy I am sure every human being has a right to, for the opportunity to join the Creator to add value to life.
Sometime ago, I realised my experience is hardly the norm. Human beings have determined that there are variations to existence. Gender – a social coinage based on anatomy, is one of these. There are boys and there are girls. What you have or do not have between your legs at birth can be destiny. What you had no influence upon can determine from day one, whether you will be reckoned with in life or considered an addendum.
It’s a boy! It’s a girl… Fate has been decided. One was made to serve the other. One may be granted access to education but it’s mostly considered a waste. The other must have access to education to be able to ‘take care’ of the first, a necessary burden. One must be bold to say what he wants at all times. The other must learn in silence or speak only when asked. One can. The other dares not. ‘Talk only when you are spoken to.’ ‘Never look into the eyes of a man.’ No wonder, a lot of men now think they are lords over all women.
On the streets of my country, Nigeria, females are discriminated daily. The male students just expect that their female classmates would keep the class tidy. The male undergraduates mostly want the ladies to be the welfare officers or secretaries. The male colleagues believe their female counterparts should be able to bring food to work. When a car drives past fast, disallowing the other driver from overtaking, someone goes ‘I thought as much, it’s a woman!’ When a car drives so slow another says, ‘Never mind, it’s a woman’ or ‘Madam, go and get a driver’. Yet, never a time have women been given hormonal medication as a requirement for driving.
My mother, Ibiyemi Oluremi Famuyiwa, raised five biological children and hundreds of others. In our home, safe for the privacy required for nudity and dignity, there were no separations. All children were required to lineup in the kitchen as the queen of our home trained us to cook. All of us had the task of house chores. All of us had the duty to go to the market to purchase food items for family use. Everyone’s opinion mattered and no one’s success was traded for the other based on sexes. We all were taught to be industrious and ambitious within the ambit of truth.
When I walk into a boardroom full of men or lead a meeting, I only now notice the difference because I have been to the school of life. My brothers are men who respect the women in their lives and other women around them. The reason is simple. We were raised as human beings – the highest species of creation with far reaching competencies and an outstanding capacity to use these competencies for the benefit of society. We were raised to know that the responsibilities that anatomy bestows on all human beings are hardly limitations.
As we mark the 2016 International Women’s Day with the theme, Pledge to Parity, I celebrate my mother and other women who have nurtured and are nurturing their wards first as human beings. I celebrate women who, like me have refused to be treated as second-class citizens in a world where we are equals. I celebrate the girls and women all over the world who despite many violations are never browbeaten into thinking they are less human than their male counterparts. I celebrate the men who have raised sons and daughters as equals. Gender parity is shamefully a struggle in today’s world, but we all remind the naysayers that it is a right.
Motunrayo Famuyiwa-Alaka, the national coordinator of the Wole Soyinka Centre For Investigative Journalism, wrote in from Lagos, Nigeria